Nixon Defense Secretaries Say U.S. Left POWs in Vietnam

By William J. Eaton
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON

Two former secretaries of defense under Richard M. Nixon testified Monday
that the U.S. government believed in 1973 that many American fliers
remained in enemy hands in Laos and were not returned with other prisoners
at the end of the Vietnam War, despite Nixon's public assurances to the
contrary.

"As of now, I can come to no other conclusion. (But) that does not mean
there are any alive today," said former Secretary of Defense James R.
Schlesinger, who also once served as head of the Central Intelligence
Agency.

The sworn testimony by Schlesinger and Melvin R. Laird, Nixon's first
Pentagon chief, marked the first time top-ranking members of the Nixon
administration were questioned publicly about the fate of U.S. servicemen
still listed as missing in action almost 20 years after the United States
withdrew from Vietnam.

In effect, their testimony before the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA
Affairs corroborated earlier statements by Ross Perot, the Texas tycoon who
has been deeply involved in POW-MIA activities since 1969. Perot told the
Senate panel last month that the evidence was "overwhelming" that POWs were
left behind after the Vietnam War ended.

The testimony also supports the judgment of many members of the Senate's
special POW-MIA committee and is the most authoritative evidence so far of
what was once an unthinkable conclusion -- that the American government
essentially wrote off pending POW-MIA cases at the war's end in effort to
close the book on the foreign policy disaster.

"I think it's quite extraordinary when two former secretaries of defense
both give evidence documenting that they had information, or they believed
personally, that people were alive and not accounted for in Operation
Homecoming," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Select
Committee.

The defense chiefs' remarks are likely to escalate demands by servicemen's
families that more be done to pressure the Vietnamese and other governments
for an accounting of the fate of the missing.

The day's events set the stage for Tuesday's appearance by Henry A.
Kissinger, who conducted secret talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris,
on the terms he negotiated for release of the POWs and for a full
accounting of hundreds of others declared missing.

Kissinger -- who served as national security adviser and secretary of state
under Nixon -- was certain to be asked about documented discussions within
the Nixon administration about using military force or strong diplomatic
pressure on behalf of an estimated 350 Americans who were believed to be
held by enemy forces after their planes were shot down over Laos.

Questioning by Kerry indicated that Kissinger would be asked whether those
Americans believed to have been held in Laos were written off as expendable
in an effort to cut short the bitter and politically divisive war.

Schlesinger, who said the Pentagon had been in contact with some of the
downed fliers after they parachuted to safety, speculated that some of them
may have been executed. Kerry said others may have been killed in combat on
the ground or died of exposure in the jungle.

In his testimony, Laird, a former Wisconsin congressman who pushed for
"Vietnamization" of the conflict so American troop levels could be reduced
after 1969, said the Pentagon had solid information, such as letters or
direct contacts, with about 20 American airmen who survived in Laos after
their planes were shot down.

While he did not say how many prisoners he believed were not properly
accounted for, Laird said he was disappointed by the list of 10 names that
the Laotians released to U.S. negotiators through the North
Vietnamese.

A memo to Kissinger from Secretary of Defense Elliott L. Richardson, dated
March 28, 1973, said the Defense Intelligence Agency listed more than 350
Americans as missing or captured in Laos at the time the list was provided
by the Laotians.

A day later, however, Nixon declared in a television address to the nation
that as a result of the Paris peace talks, "All of our American POWs are on
their way home."

Not long after, 527 POWs, mainly held by North Vietnam, did return in the
dramatic "Operation Homecoming."

"I think it was unfortunate to be that positive," Laird said of Nixon's
assertion that all POWs would be returned. "You can't be that positive when
we had the kind of intelligence we had when I left."

Laird resigned as defense secretary in January 1973, but returned to the
White House as a counselor to Nixon later that year. Schlesinger, who
became defense secretary in July 1973 after a brief stint as head of the
CIA, was asked if he felt any of those who were captured in Laos were still
alive.

"I believe those prospects would be very slim," he said. "It's conceivable
that one or two may have survived, or a handful."

Also appearing before the committee was Kissinger's former assistant,
Alexander Haig, who was later a White House adviser to Nixon. Haig,
combative and confrontational, strongly disagreed with the suggestion the
administration knew Americans were left behind.

He said he did not believe the North Vietnamese produced a full accounting
of U.S. prisoners, but he insisted he saw no evidence that living Americans
had been left in captivity, and he strongly questioned the committee's
motives in raising the issue now.

The committee also wants to investigate allegations that top Pentagon
officials tried to hush up information about U.S. airmen held in Laos or
other remote locations, as suggested by newly declassified documents made
public by the panel.

A Defense Department report for the week ending April 7, 1973, for example,
listed 80 U.S. military personnel as "current captured", although Pentagon
officials a few days later declared there was no indication that any
Americans remained in the former Indo China after the `Homecoming'
exodus.